C.P. Scott’s famous dictum of “Comment is free, but facts are sacred’ bears reminder in The Star’s coverage of the Mandarin debate yesterday between MCA President Datuk Seri Dr Chua and myself.

As The Star is owned by MCA, I respect the right of The Star to present a partisan slant and biased report of the proceedings. However I can neither condone nor accept when the Star invents quotes that I never said.

Under the article “What they said” in page 6 of the Star today, I was reported to have said during the debate on “Is The 2-party system becoming a 2-race system?”

“We do not agree the Prime Minister must always be Malay because we want the people to decide.”

This quote attributed to me is false and untrue because no reference whatsoever was ever made by me on this issue during the debate. As this debate was conducted in Mandarin, I would prefer to believe that this was a simple mistake in comprehension by an English newspaper, notwithstanding the Star being owned by MCA.

I would therefore request that the Star publishes a full retraction and apology for the error in a prominent section of your edition tomorrow at the same Page 6.